The arrival of a long, dark winter feels a tad more intimidating than usual this year, what with all the incurable brain disease of it all, so I’m doing my best to focus on all the good things that are happening and the delicious little tidbits that can and will continue, even in the depths of December, January, and February. I’m a Capricorn rising, and I need to have a plan to ward off the seasonal sads!

First and foremost, my scans indicate that my meds are doing what they need to do to halt the progression of my MS. Yay! Until a Bryan Johnson-type human gets diagnosed and invests billions into research, this is pretty much the most that I can hope for. I’d love to think that a cure is only a few years away, but for now, I’ll settle for (hopefully) not getting any worse, with a cautiously optimistic eye on the future of autoimmune and MS treatments. Do both of these things affect women at vastly higher rates, and therefore mean that the federal government and healthcare could care less? YOU’RE GD RIGHT. Nevertheless, I am manifesting their eradication in my lifetime.

Second, my boyfriend is hot, kind (he fixed my clogged sink drain while I was away this weekend for work), and lives within walking distance of me. I’m basking in the glow of a very healthy, happy relationship at the moment. Plus, he has dimples, and I never knew what kind of power they could have over my heart rate.

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I wish I didn’t have to write it out, but apparently, there is no amount of consent education, well-intentioned reminders, or horrific headlines that will make the men—yes, those ones—care enough to stop, to think, to treat women with respect, or at least like human beings. If there is a chance they won’t get caught, well, you know the rest. So, in the interest of making someone feel a little less alone, here’s my story.

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World famous supermodel or not, the onslaught on commentary about this drop-dead-gorgeous woman’s “new face” is yet another example of what I fear we, as a society, are doomed to do now that we spend an ungodly amount of time staring at our own mugs. Whether via Zoom, social media, or—for a select few beautiful people—in various movies or TV shows that are then posted about on social media, your appearance is memorialized forever in the annals of Google and its omnipresent competitors. That offers unlimited chances for the view-hungry plastic surgeons and lonely online trolls to compare and contrast when you looked your best, worst, older, younger, fat, thin—you get the idea.

Now recall, I’m a peak millennial who came of age exactly as the Internet was coming into its prime. Instagram (thankfully) didn’t exist until after I graduated college, and Facebook albums were mostly stacked with scans of digital camera prints. Google Image Search was still relatively new, and celebrity galleries were merely a fledgling concept for whatever tabloids had waded into the digital space. We were not yet to the point of documenting our own aging process in real time, over multiple decades—until now.

I am 15 years older than I was when I posted my first Instagram selfie, and I must admit that (gasp) my face does not look the same as it did in 2012. But don’t worry if you didn’t follow me back then—with a bit of patient scrolling, anyone can look back and make the comparison. I, at least, am not a celebrity, and no overeager reporter or wannabe cultural commentator will care to guess as to my various plastic surgeries, or lack thereof. Plus, I think I look way hotter at 37 than 22, but I digress.

My fear is that for a society that is already so afraid of growing older, and looking old in particular, we haven’t quite come to terms with the reality that we are no longer able to age in private. Not in a surreptitious manner, but if the average person today were to simply stop posting themselves forever, it might draw an occasional question, or spark curiosity where there wouldn’t any be two decades ago. Before we lived so much life online, we weren’t able to access someone’s personal photo album. Now, the permanent visual archive is part of someone’s bored afternoon scroll, even if they’re not hunting for evidence of a neck lift or chin lipo. Famous or not, our bodies and faces are public to varying degrees, which means it’s open season to judge each other.

Of course one of the best things about growing older is that you care significantly less about other people’s opinions. Even so, I have yet to meet someone at any age who could 100 percent claim to not worry about or consider their appearance. I am a beauty editor and I can say with absolute certainty that everybody cares, at least a little bit. And yet we’ve managed to offer ourselves up for judgement (and praise, of course) because, well, we’re nosy and like the rush, and the app overlords have made sure that the process is as addicting as possible.

Still, I’m nostalgic for a time that I never got to experience; when you could inject or not inject, go gray or dye, and no one except the people you came into contact with would be the wiser. While not done totally behind closed doors, it used to be that your your aging face and body were comfortably insulated from public opinion. You could grow older surrounded by the people in your life, rather than in front of hundreds of thousands of strangers online—alongside the evidence of what we looked like before.

And as much as I like a juicy gossip sesh with some girlfriends, and talking about all things injectables and plastic surgery (I am a beauty editor, after all) I wish that we could collectively cool our rabid analysis over who is aging well and who looks like they’re trying too hard—or worse, not trying at all. Perhaps we could do ourselves a favor and mind our own fucking business. Just a thought!

I’ll drink an Anxiety Beer to that.

retail < therapy

1. Reformation Stella Coat: Fall is here, my friends, so obviously I had to buy a new coat to mark the occasion. I freaking love outerwear, what can I say!? This vision in gold just arrived at my apartment and I cannot wait to wear her out and dazzle the streets of NYC.

2. INNBEAUTY PROJECT - Extreme Cleanse Milky Micellar Cleanser: I’m a bad beauty editor and I’m almost always too lazy to double cleanse to fully get my makeup off at night. This new formula removes waterproof mascara and every last ounce of makeup on my face in one wash. I was shocked! I will say the smell is a bit powdery and not my favorite, BUT, the cleansing power is plenty for me to move this to the front of my medicine cabinet for the foreseeable future. It is GOOD, y’all.

3. Mango Beaded Bag: Ugh, I love a fussy little handbag. I’ve gotten my daily drivers down at this point, but my event bag collection is lacking. This cutie is the perfect price point since I doubt I’ll be using it as much as my favorite tote, but it’s still got a stylish, dreamy, Gatsby-esque vibe to it. Holiday party season, I’m ready for you.

Until next time, friends.

xxHB

New York City isn’t exactly known as a haven for anyone looking to protect her peace. Hell, personal space is a luxury only the elite can comfortably afford. But aside from the occasional packed 3 train home, I’m on a mission keep myself as deliciously cocooned as possible for the foreseeable future, no matter how much “back to school” propaganda I hear now that September has arrived. Seriously, forget the fervor of New Year’s resolutions—this window of time is when I, and many of my NYC peers, feel the biggest push to re-enter the relentless grind for which the city (and, let’s be honest, adulthood) is known.

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Obviously, unless you’ve got an ego the size of Long Island, nobody knows the answer to absolutely everything, but by the time you hit your late thirties, it stands to reason that you’ve reached a level in your life and in your career that requires some true expertise. That is growth! That is good! I love feeling like I can look around, metaphorically or not, and realize—oh shit—I do kinda sorta know what I’m talking about. Until you don’t.

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The contrast with the rest of last week was stark. Between layoffs at my company, a celebration of life for a loved one’s brother, and another friend’s loss of a beloved pet, it was… a rough one. Which is why it felt so strange and yet so welcome to be at a bar on Saturday night with my boyfriend and more friends for Game 5, screaming and bouncing wildly all over the sticky, beer-soaked floor. With everyone crammed together sweating and gasping at the TVs that plastered every wall, it felt, for a few hours at least, as if the world and all its heartbreaks faded away, blocked by the 6”5 bouncer at the door.

Obviously, many people will point to sports and their power to bring people together as the reason why New Yorkers lost their minds, but something about this shared experience felt different—more apt for the moment we find ourselves in right now. Between political divisions, economic uncertainty, multiple wars, and a near constant onslaught of news coverage reminding us of it all, tensions are reaching perilous levels. And that’s before you factor in each of our own personal struggles. Things feel like they’re getting harder in general, which is kinda sorta the opposite of what we were all hoping for coming out of the pandemic (remember that?). It’s as if pure, unadulterated happiness has become something reserved for the elite, not the average everyday person, because just existing with all your dignity and sanity intact is just so damn elusive these days.

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There are a handful of fires raging around me, both personal and professional, and I quite literally don’t know how to put them out because… well, I’ve never done this before, and I’m terrified of getting it wrong. What if I make the wrong choice, or say the wrong thing, or everyone turns to me and realizes that I actually have zero idea what I’m talking about? You know that feeling, the one your therapist will calmly remind you is categorically untrue because look how far you’ve come? How could a person who has no idea what’s the best choice end up in your fortunate position? Apartment? Check. Job? Check. Boyfriend? Check.

Well, for some god forsaken reason, even after 36 years, it’s still an omnipresent feeling that manages to touch basically every corner of my life. And it’s really fucking annoying.

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Can you tell I just received my hospital bill?

But seriously, after spending two days in the hospital post-ER visit, receiving three IV infusions of heavy-duty steroids, and more blood draws than I can count, the grand total to diagnose and treat me was:

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The part that’s bothering me the most isn’t just my i…

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Truthfully, all I can think about right now is how I just want to go to the Hayley Williams concert on Thursday and dance my fucking face off like a regular healthy person. But now there’s a massive asterisk next to the whole thing because I don’t know if I’ll get dizzy from whipping my head side to side, or stumble into a stranger as I move through the crowd, or feel so utterly exhausted on Friday morning that I can’t get out of bed to make it to my next appointment. That type of concern shouldn’t even be on my mind—other than the very thirty-something concern about pulling a muscle or tweaking an ankle from the tiniest bit of extraneous movement (fellow millennials, you know what I mean). But now I’m a person who has to take stock of her body and mind basically every single second that I’m conscious. Am I in a flare? Do I feel balanced? Is the vertigo back? When’s my next MRI? What happens next?

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Last week, I was feeling kind of funny, like a hangover wooziness that just wouldn’t relent (it was a Thursday). Hot, kind of nauseous, unsteady on my feet. As if I’d stuffed a bunch of cotton balls into my ears. I watched some YouTube videos on ear crystals and made a last-minute appointment with an ENT way uptown. Fou…

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I am someone who has spent countless hours, days, years stressing over the idea that whatever partner I choose could assure me that they wouldn’t want to have a kid—a belief I have confidently, if not absolutely, held since I hit puberty—only to then turn around and admit that they actually do want to procreate and, well, see you later, gator. The women polled for this story share that same sentiment, with a few gut-wrenching real-world examples of boyfriends pulling exactly this bait and switch. Cue the heart palpitations.

Even as I sit firmly in my mid-thirties and ponder the motherhood question a little more with every passing birthday, I won’t lie and say that the fear over this type of quandary has left my body. On the contrary, as I date a wonderful man and daydream over what a life together could look like, it’s been bubbling up so often that you’d think I was standing in front of a tribunal of OBGYNs and fertility specialists all pointing to their watches, like they need me to know how quickly my 36-year-old eggs are dying. Clearly, I’m not the only woman who feels this way, and it was reassuring to read such similar stories about the absolute mind-fuck that is choosing to start a family or forgoing the whole thing altogether. However, I do take issue with the fact that this feature left out a key learning that I, through many, many sessions with my therapist about the baby problem, have come to understand:

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